TI99/4a OS versions

[+videofx]

1. What versions of the TI99/4a OS were available and in what consoles?

 

2. How can you find out what OS version your TI99/4a has?

 

Thanks!

[Scorch40]

As far as I'm aware, there are no different versions of TI Basic.  It was a very minimal operation system designed to run the machine and that was about it. It wasn't designed for programming until the Extended Basic cartridge came along.  There were apparently two versions of XB, 2.7 which was released centuries ago, and 2.8 which I can't find any info on.  You can probably find more info on Wikipedia.

[atrax27407]

There are two versions of TI XB (the cartridge). Type CALL VERSION(X)::PRINT X and it will print either 110 or 100. Version 110 is the most recent one. There are multiple other versions of XB that were developed by other talented programmers. XB 2.5 and XB 2.7 are the work of Tony Knerr and are available as cartridges. There are perhaps 25 other versions that are available on cartridge as well but all require a GROM device or a pre-programmed cartridge. 

[HOME AUTOMATION]

There have been revisions to console BASIC...

 

 

[pixelpedant]

And if we're looking at 99/4 BASIC vs 4A BASIC differences, of course the biggest one from a user standpoint is just that the 99/4 doesn't load anything into CHR$ 96 and up, while the 4A loads an entire lower case as well as five special characters not present on the 99/4 keyboard.  As well, the cursor differs.  And elsewhere, Equation Calculator is absent after the 99/4. 

 

But I believe the original question pertained to the TI-99/4A operating system. 

 

And there, the case in which revision to the TI-99 operating system is most often mentioned and most often relevant is just with respect to the 2.2 operating system revision present on some later 4As. 

 

Which is notorious for breaking compatibility with third party ROM carts (like the Atarisoft carts). 

 

And which will advise of its presence on boot as follows:

 

 

[+Ksarul]

There are several variants: the 1979 OS in the 99/4, the 1981 OS in the 99/4A, the Argentine Spanish GROM for the 99/4A from 1982, the V2.2 GROM from 1983, and the Control Data GROM from 1983 (based on the V2.2 GROM with a different title screen).

[+videofx]

The reason I ask is I have a black console and a beige console with finalgrom99 cart. I have XB 2.9 GEM.

 

On the black console XB 2.9 GEM locks up before displaying the command line. On my Beige console XB 2.9 GEM works fine.

 

So is it the OS that's different or something else?

[senior_falcon]

1 hour ago, videofx said:

The reason I ask is I have a black console and a beige console with finalgrom99 cart. I have XB 2.9 GEM.

 

On the black console XB 2.9 GEM locks up before displaying the command line. On my Beige console XB 2.9 GEM works fine.

 

So is it the OS that's different or something else?

Very interesting...

Wolhess has mentioned a similar problem with XB 2.9 in the thread "XB Game Developer's Package." Take a look there at post #938 and see if the symptoms are the same as yours. Do both your consoles have the 32K memory expansion? Is the beige one V2.2?

I don't think I did anything that would make the cartridge dependent on a specific grom 0, but I see that grom 0 in TI INTERN is not the same as grom 0 in Classic99.

Wolfgang cannot enter anything, but a LOAD program runs. If a LOAD program works for you, try entering this short program with a different XB and save it to DSK1.LOAD

10 CALL PEEKG(256,X)::PRINT X

20 GOTO 20

Then select XB 2.9 G.E.M. which should run this. Report the results.

[+videofx]

I am going to use my Gram Kracker on my beige console and save grom 0, then I will load the saved grom 0 on my black console and see if it works. If that works I will save grom0 from my black console and load it on my beige console.

 

I will also try what you suggest and report back.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by videofx

[atrax27407]

How are you going to load it in your console?

[+videofx]

1 minute ago, atrax27407 said:

How are you going to load it in your console?

with the gram kracker load grom, just like I was loading a saved cartridge.  it tells you on page 12 of the gram kracker manual how to do it.

[atrax27407]

Once again, how are you going to physically load GROM0 into the console?

[senior_falcon]

For some additional info, XB 2.9 G.E.M. seems to work fine running from V2.2 in Classic99. It also works in the 99/4, although the edge characters are black for some reason.

[+mizapf]

10 hours ago, atrax27407 said:

Once again, how are you going to physically load GROM0 into the console?

The GRAM Kracker can override the console GROMs.

[atrax27407]

I realize that but he was talking about replacing the console GROMs physically.

[senior_falcon]

2 minutes ago, atrax27407 said:

I realize that but he was talking about replacing the console GROMs physically.

That was not how I understood his messages.

[+videofx]

4 minutes ago, atrax27407 said:

I realize that but he was talking about replacing the console GROMs physically.

No I never said I was going to physically replace the console GROM. 

 

I said I will use my GRAM Kracker to save GROM0 from my beige console and I save GROM 0 to disk, DSK1.OPSYS and then use my GRAM Kracker to load DSK1.OPSYS, GROM0 on my black console, loading GROM0 from my saved disk. The GRAM Kracker will override the console GROM0.

[RXB]

Back over 20 years ago at Chicago Faire it was discussed about GRAMKracker or GRAMulator or other GRAM devices that could override GROM 0, 1 and 2.

My own argument was load our own version of GROM 0, 1 and 2 and make our own DOS for the TI99/4A.

This upset the Geneve people to no end...

[+mizapf]

22 minutes ago, RXB said:

This upset the Geneve people to no end...

 

Why? If we Geneve people prefer a different GROM0,1,2, we just replace those files, since they must be loaded anyway. I did that right from the start, replacing the lower case character set, translating the texts on the Master Title Screen, and making it appear again, as it was patched out.

[RXB]

7 minutes ago, mizapf said:

 

Why? If we Geneve people prefer a different GROM0,1,2, we just replace those files, since they must be loaded anyway. I did that right from the start, replacing the lower case character set, translating the texts on the Master Title Screen, and making it appear again, as it was patched out.

At the time there were like 8 projects going on with Geneve, SCSI, new DOS, RAMBO and some other projects, this just added a new backward section they were unwilling to attack yet.

[+videofx]

23 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

Very interesting...

Wolhess has mentioned a similar problem with XB 2.9 in the thread "XB Game Developer's Package." Take a look there at post #938 and see if the symptoms are the same as yours. Do both your consoles have the 32K memory expansion? Is the beige one V2.2?

I don't think I did anything that would make the cartridge dependent on a specific grom 0, but I see that grom 0 in TI INTERN is not the same as grom 0 in Classic99.

Wolfgang cannot enter anything, but a LOAD program runs. If a LOAD program works for you, try entering this short program with a different XB and save it to DSK1.LOAD

10 CALL PEEKG(256,X)::PRINT X

20 GOTO 20

Then select XB 2.9 G.E.M. which should run this. Report the results.

I ran your program and the result is 8. I did this also on the working console and the result is also 8.

 

I tried XB 2.6 on my black console and it works. Only 2.9 doesn't.

 

Here is a screen shot of XB 2.9 on my black console where it locks up after displaying the XB prompt.

 

It is not the OS. I loaded in the OS from my beige console and XB 2.9 still doesn't work. So now I am scratching my head as to what the difference is between my black and beige

consoles.

 

OS is 1981 and tried the non working console OS on my beige console and XB 2.9 still works so we know its not the OS.

 

And Im using the 32k expansion on both consoles .

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by videofx

[senior_falcon]

This gets stranger with every post. Let me reiterate what I understand is happening.

You have two consoles, one black & silver and one beige.

Both give a copyright of 1981.

Both return a value of 8 when you CALL PEEKG(256,X)

You have a normal TI expansion box with a gramkracker card.

I assume there is a 32K card in the expansion box. (or does the final grom provide 32K?)

XB 2.9 G.E.M. is on the final grom

The two consoles give different results,with one crashing and one not crashing, even though they are connected exactly the same way and are using the same console groms.

Is the above summary accurate?

It doesn't seem like there should be a difference. If the cartridge is the same, the expansion system is the same, the console groms are the same, the 32K is the same then it is hard to imagine what the difference might be.

Two possibilities come to mind:

Could there be a difference in the 8K console rom?

Is it possible that one of the consoles has 32K built into it?

 

It turns out that CALL PEEKG(258,X)::PRINT X does a better job of differentiating between the systems

TI99/4                        7

TI99/4a (Intern)       190

TI99/4a (Classic99)    80

TI99/4a (V2.2)           45

[AwkwardPotato]

Doubt this is directly relevant to @videofx's problem, but the E/A manual does state that different 4As handle XOP 1 differently (granted I'm not familiar enough with assembly yet to know how this is significant). In other words, perhaps not all 4As with the 1981 GROMs are created equal?

[+Lee Stewart]

3 hours ago, AwkwardPotato said:

Doubt this is directly relevant to @videofx's problem, but the E/A manual does state that different 4As handle XOP 1 differently (granted I'm not familiar enough with assembly yet to know how this is significant). In other words, perhaps not all 4As with the 1981 GROMs are created equal?

 

Unless some other ROM 0 locations are also different, the values for the XOP vectors for XOP 1 are at >0044 (68₁₀) and >0046 (70₁₀) and would, indeed, not be relevant because XB 2.9 GEM does not use XOPs.

 

...lee

[senior_falcon]

6 hours ago, AwkwardPotato said:

Doubt this is directly relevant to @videofx's problem, but the E/A manual does state that different 4As handle XOP 1 differently (granted I'm not familiar enough with assembly yet to know how this is significant). In other words, perhaps not all 4As with the 1981 GROMs are created equal?

That's an interesting observation. I had forgotten that there were some slight differences in the roms.

@videofx

Try this simple program on your two consoles (any XB will work fine) and report the results. This is not super fast, so patience is necessary.

5 CALL INIT
10 FOR I=0 TO 8190 STEP 2 :: CALL PEEK(I,A,B):: TOT=TOT+A*256+B :: NEXT I
20 PRINT TOT

This simply peeks every word in the 8K rom and adds it to TOT.